Current network management tools such as Hewlett Packard's OPEN VIEW and ADVENTNET, have typically been used by System Administrators for detecting and analyzing faults that occur within a network. The programs generally discover a network and each node or router on the network submits to the administrator if and where faults exist in the network so that the System Administrator can address the problematic faults. The System administrator can select an individual router and provision the router through the OPEN VIEW and ADVENTNET GUI. When provisioning a router, the existing tools utilize a standard protocol such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) or command line interface. The standard protocol is typically communicated to the provisioning tool like OPEN VIEW or ADVENTNET by the router during the network discovery so that the protocol utilized for provisioning the router is hidden from the user. Provisioning a router includes router control parameters such as assigning an IP address to a router or assigning a bandwidth for a certain type of communication through the router.
One of the problems with the existing network management tools is that they do not provide for administration of VoIP networks. Another disadvantage of the current tools is that they do not allow a user to initialize multiple routers along a selected VoIP path.